Remarkable Rajasthan

Last weekend was Tom's birthday, so we escaped Delhi, took Sophie to her favourite place, the airport, and boarded a Jet Konnect twin prop to Jodhpur. 1 hr 20 minutes later, bags collected, car waiting - we were on our way to the RAAS hotel.

The journey was fairly mainstream until we hit the old town. At entering the gates of the Clock Tower you travel back in time to donkey carts and extraordinary narrow lanes - not made for Toyota Innova's!

The RAAS impressed from the moment we pulled through the grand old gates. We were greeted by lovely staff who applied tilak (red powder dot) to our foreheads and offered a refreshing ginger and lemon drink. Before we saw our room, we were escorted around the grounds, shown the frog pond, the pool and you couldn't ignore the imposing view of the Fort. It was a beautiful hotel of a mere 31 rooms.

We stayed in room 123, this was our view.

View from 123!

As you can see from this pic, this beautiful place is also right next to a mosque.... and it was Friday..... so our first welcome to Jodhpur was the call to prayer, that goes on for a really long time on Friday. However it really doesn't matter and certainly didn't bother us - kind of added to the ambiance.

Friday we spent at the hotel, had lunch, swam, arranged a babysitter and that was about it. Luckily a very nice lady arrived at 8pm to a very wide awake Sophie and we took our leave. Tom and I had a walk around the streets of Jodhpur, met some lovely convincing spice and fabric sellers, witnessed little people worshipping and singing at the foot of Ganesh statues and we dodged inevitable cow poo! We returned to find Soph still awake and running rings around the lovely babysitter!

Saturday was tour day and we left the hotel via the very funky blue tuk tuk....

The streets of Jodhpur are full of amazing things, yes you are in India, so you get used to a certain level of craziness but I really liked the vibe of this town - it was friendly, casual and colourful -always colourful!!!

The first thing I saw on our travels was a funeral procession, a body being carried above the shoulders of its loved ones wrapped in bright, colourful fabrics.... not a piece of black in sight! The crowd chanted, sang and rang bells as they moved toward the cremation site.

As we wound our way through the streets of Jodhpur we saw all kind of things... cows, pigs, dogs, Gods of Sex....

but the team favourite was the elephant

No getting passed this...

An elephant and his Mahout.

Aren't they beautiful? We stopped, Sophie fed him 20 rupees, which he dutifully passed to his Mahout.

Following on from the elephant spot, we moved on to the reservoir - which was lovely and actively being used by worshippers and also by random dogs to take care of their families.

Reservoir near the Fort

Ganesh ji

I spot puppies under the pavement!!!!

Of course Jodhpur is also famous for being the 'blue city' - houses are painted blue and the reasons vary from keeping the place cool to repelling mosquito's.

and lovely Ganesh statues are everywhere

The afternoon saw us at the Mehrangarh Fort, this place is spectacular. Built right up on the hill there it has a lovely breeze and the architecture is amazing, not hard to believe it never was successfully attacked.

Walls of the Fort

 

Entrance to the Fort

 

Beautiful Fort and a must see.... for the Fort and the view

Umaid Palace in the distance

 

One of the great things about the day was our very nice guide - Ram. He didn't take us to one shop, didn't push us to do anything and was brilliant taking care of our daughter throughout the day. If you are going to Jodhpur and need a guide call Ramniwas (Ram) 09314709126.

So then back to the hotel, more swimming, relaxing and listening to the AFL finals series on the iPad with the free Wi-Fi..... oh and some frog spotting!

All in all Jodhpur was great, the hotel was perfect and nothing was too much trouble - the staff were all amazing and I was quite sad to leave.
 

Jaipur for Janmashtami

For the long weekend of Krishna's birthday, known as Janmashtami, we left the fasting Anna Hazare back in Delhi and headed to Jaipur. We decided to drive and was told the 230kms would take about 5 hours. Seriously 5 hours???? This is a shorter distance than Perth to Yallingup! This seemed crazy but I also know the roads here so I didn't doubt them.

We set off at 6am on Saturday morning. The road had sections of complete insanity, especially as the monsoon rains had caused a fair bit of flooding.

Thankfully not on this bus!

School on a Saturday and this...... bit tough.

Unbelievable conditions on the great highway.

Beside the rain, the other problem is the massive, colourful, completely erratic trucks. They drive those things like they are hatchbacks! Just insane and of course accidents are never far away.

The woman driving this Honda was furious but the truck just drove away....

Broken axle and a jack-knife - awesome!

Thankfully we avoided the accidents and arrived to the old wall of Jaipur 6 hours after we left Delhi. For those of you considering a trip to Jaipur there is a 40 min flight...... I strongly advise it.

Welcome to Jaipur

Jaipur is striking when you arrive, the amazing Amber Fort perched on the hill, the kilometres of pink walls protecting the city, camels, elephants, dogs everywhere. It's pretty amazing!

We went straight to our accommodation at Samode Haveli. It is a 200 year old house which is still in the same family. We had a great room overlooking the gardens, heaps of space but I had left S's cot at home! Agh .... They offered me a cot that would barely have kept a newborn safe let alone a walking busy toddler so I "politely" declined and S was given a bed on the floor of the walk in wardrobe.

Once I had regained my composure over the bed fiasco we headed to lunch. I chose poorly so I won't review this lunch but S enjoyed some of the local music.

Then to the pool. It was a great pool for families with a big pool, a toddler pool, a spa and also a walk out ledge that toddlers could play on. There was also a bar that served us an ice coffee or a mojito!

S and T enjoying the wading ledge

Saturday night we headed out to eat at 1135 AD but Anna Hazare protests had blocked off a couple of streets and we weren't going to make it up to the restaurant so we headed back and ate in the courtyard of the hotel. We had a Rajastahani feast and it was very good. Lots of meats and breads and all washed down with a couple of bottles of very good Australian red.

Sunday was tour day at the Fort. We paid our Rs900 and hopped on our elephant and 'zoomed' our way to the top. We had a fast elephant called Rani whereas our friends hilariously had the slowest elephant on the planet.  We managed to resist purchasing anything on the way up and enjoyed the slow swagger of sitting on an elephants back while soaking up a pretty speccy view.

Rani's mahoots orange turban

A very pretty Hati

Stunning view from the back of our elephant

The Amber Fort in Jaipur is impressive. Its a huge fort, full of sprawling rooms, grounds and makes for a really interesting tour. We visited the hammam, the gardens, the wall of mirrors and the water chamber. It was excellent. There are some also pretty interesting things to see at the end of the tour - snake charmers, stores Hot Pink and Tulsi plus a modern art gallery. Impressive!

Manicured gardens of the fort

Following a good two hours at the Fort we took the stroll down the hill, wound our way through the old city and ended up at Anokhi cafe for lunch. It is a European menu of pizzas, fritters, salads and pasta and really very good. It's attached to a large Anokhi store so you an do some shopping while you wait.

My friend M and I then left the kids with their dads and went shopping. There is so much shopping to do in Jaipur and we barely scratched the surface. We searched out some sparkly bangles, blue pottery and some nice fabrics but a return trip is a must!

After a splash in the pool, a mojito and leaving the kids with their babysitter we tried again with 1135 AD restaurant. This restaurant is at the Amber Fort and it is beautiful. They have refurbished one of the rooms in the Fort and it is stunning, completely over the top but that's it's charm. The meal was sensational and the garlic naan was possibly the best I have ever tried. There is no booze served here due to its location near the temple and the price for 4 was about Rs4500.

Inside of 1135 AD

With our friendly waiter

So our last day in Jaipur saw us chilling by the pool before we battled the highway back to Delhi.

It was a lovely weekend shared with great people and Jaipur is definitely worth another visit in the not to distant future.